The genius of chess Alexander Alekhin, when leaving, did not slam the door. But our Anton Filippov on the contrary...

A number of foreign and national online media reported on the demarche of member of the Uzbekistan national chess team Anton Filippov, who "decided to leave the national team."

As the chess player admitted himself, "this decision was not easy for him, but it will help change attitudes towards chess players in Uzbekistan." The main thing that offended the grandmaster - he was deprived of the state scholarship, relying on the members of the team. In this case, the athlete noted that in his country, players do not get even a minimum of what is provided to foreigners.

I admit that these statements of our chess player surprised me greatly. Everyone knows that Anton Filippov has been living with his family in Almaty for several years now, working there as a coach, transferring his knowledge and experience to Kazakh chess players. His name could often be seen in various tournaments of the neighboring country, and not at competitions in our republic. Therefore, the fact that he received a state scholarship for members of the national team of Uzbekistan, I repeat, surprised me. For explanations I applied to the Chess Federation of Uzbekistan (CFU).

I was told in the CFU that under the "scholarship" is meant cash payments that are allocated to the members of the national team, which regularly defends the honor of Uzbekistan in the international arena. Since for more than one year the international grandmaster Anton Filippov did not participate in the national team in international tournaments, he was deprived it by the Coaching Council.

In particular, in 2016 Filippov was invited by the Coaching Council to protect the honor of Uzbekistan in the “Asian Nations Cup” team Asian Chess Championship in the United Arab Emirates, and in 2017 in the V Asian Games in closed premises in Turkmenistan. However, he refused to participate in both important competitions. By the way, at the Asian Games, our team did not perform well and
I think a certain percentage of Anton's guilt in this is obvious.

In the federation they also stressed that they always supported Anton Filippov in the best of their abilities and abilities. Thus, in 2008, at the request of the CFU, he was appointed as a sportsman-instructor to the Ministry of Culture and Sports of the Republic of Uzbekistan with payment of regular wages for his achievements. And after his successful performance at the World Chess Olympiad in Istanbul in
2012 (silver medal on the second board), the Federation encouraged him with a solid monetary prize.

As you can see, everything was not quite as it was stated on your Facebook page by a grandmaster from Uzbekistan. Yes, he was deprived of scholarships, but only after he stopped playing for the national team. What did he want? In big sports, money is not paid for "beautiful eyes".

Yes, and the results of A. Filippov in the tournaments for the national team of Uzbekistan in recent years have clearly gone into decline. For example, in the World Chess Olympiad in Tromso in 2014, he scored only 5.5 points out of 10, not even hitting the top twenty. Therefore, in 2016, at the World Chess Olympiad in Baku, he defended the honor of our country on the third board, but also showed there was not a better game.

By the way, the Uzbek grandmaster is not the first time declaring his retirement from the national team. Well, I decided to leave - the tablecloth is expensive, but why with this deafening door slam?